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Erdogan: Turkey will not quarrel with Russia over Syria
Russia and Turkey canceled joint patrols after the Turkish military came under fire from the Syrian forces.
It makes no sense to conflict with Russia over the situation in Syrian Idlib, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes. He said this on the plane on the way from Kiev, Sabah reports on Tuesday, February 4.
"There is no need to get involved in a conflict or in a serious dispute with Russia at the moment, we will discuss everything, but without anger, taking into account that we have joint initiatives of a special strategic nature," he said.
At the same time, he said that Turkey brought to the attention of Russia the impossibility of turning a blind eye to the continuation of the conflict in Idlib, to the death of civilians there and to a new exodus from there to the Turkish border. The President recalled that as a result of the actions of the Turkish Armed Forces in response to the shelling of the Syrians, 76 Syrian soldiers were “neutralized”.
He also called the shelling of the Turkish military in Idlib "an open violation of the agreements on Syria" and promised that supporters of the Syrian authorities "will pay for their actions."
In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Turkey of violating the agreements in Syria. He spoke about this in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta .
"Unfortunately, at this stage, the Turkish side was not able to fulfill a couple of key commitments that were designed to resolve the Idlib problem radically," the diplomat said.
He noted that the first is the dissociation of the armed opposition, which has contacts with Turkey and is capable of dialogue, from the terrorists of the “Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham” group.
"At the same time, information is received about the deployment of Turkish troops near the Idlib zone, that clashes are beginning between them and units of the Syrian army. Our military is monitoring this situation," Lavrov said.
Russia, he said, was unable to warn Syria of Turkey’s movements, since Ankara had no contact with Moscow on this occasion. He added that the situation is very sad, but it is necessary to strictly implement the Idlib agreements of 2018 and 2019.
Last week, Erdogan accused Russia of ignoring the current agreements on Syria. He said that his country would act on its own, right up to a new military operation if Moscow does not review its cooperation with the Assad regime.
Lukashenko told where all the directors of sugar factories had gone
The President of Belarus personally ordered the deployment of the aircraft in order to detain one of the directors of the plants.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has confirmed that the directors of all sugar factories in the country were detained by the State Security Committee, BelTA informs on Tuesday, February 4.
According to him, business leaders created a scheme for selling sugar to Russia "at bargain prices."
"This has not happened in Belarus yet. They created a gasket in Moscow - a trading house. They put their own there. Belarusian sugar was sold to trading houses from the factories at bargain prices. They increased the price and sold on the market. They gave the difference to the factory directors with bribes," - said Lukashenko.
He noted that the security services had been tracking actions for a long time, and promised that in the near future the KGB would report in detail on the investigation of the case. Lukashenko himself was most indignant at the fact that part of the sugar sold for a pittance in Russia eventually entered the Belarusian market, but at an overpriced price.
Lukashenko also confirmed that it was precisely by his personal order that the plane that had already left the airspace of Belarus in which one of the suspects was returned was returned.
"Even here is the plane ... One could not be detained earlier. He returned, said, the plane from Western Europe, landed and removed from there. They returned the plane, got it and sent it to the detention center," the president said, promising that the attitude to all guilty of fraud will be "cruel."
“People got caught there and with epaulettes. He said everyone was under the broom in the cell. Everyone,” Lukashenko added.
The detention of the leaders of all four sugar factories in Belarus was reported by local media in late January. In total, according to them, 11 people were detained.
The number of coronavirus victims exceeded 400
In a day in the Chinese province of Hubei, 2345 new cases of infection with coronavirus were recorded.
The new coronovirus 2019-nCoV killed 425 people in the Chinese province of Hubei. The number of infected increased by 2345 and reached 13 522.
"Over the past day, 2345 new cases of 2019-nCoV coronavirus infection have been registered in Hubei, the number of victims has increased by 64 and reached 425," said a spokesman for the provincial health committee. Previously reported 361 dead .
Recall that the first case of coronavirus infection was recorded in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Infected persons are detected in more than 20 countries.
The World Health Organization has recognized an outbreak of coronavirus as an international emergency.
Presidential election begins in scandal in US
Iowa’s Democratic Party Assembly has been unable to count votes for several hours due to a computer failure. Meanwhile, at the caucus of the Republicans, Trump got a landslide victory.
In the US state of Iowa on Monday, February 3, the primary party vote — the Caucus — took place in the Democratic and Republican parties. However, the publication of the Democrats' caucus results has been delayed for several hours, CNN reports .
The leadership of the Democratic Party reported a malfunction in the computer application. However, it is noted that the problems are not related to a hacker attack or some kind of external interference.
According to the channel, the leadership of the Democratic Party is holding a meeting to decide how to cope with the problem. Representatives of politicians who aspired to be nominated as US presidential candidates from the Democrats were not invited to the meeting.
Party officials had earlier admitted that “there were delays” in the publication of data due to “quality checks”. They did not provide details.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump won the Republican Party meeting in Iowa. The Republican Party in this state posted the corresponding message on its Twitter page .
"The Republican Party in Iowa announces that US President Donald Trump, [having received] an overwhelming majority of the vote, won," the text says.
Both Republicans and Democrats hold their meetings on Monday. At these meetings, called caucuses, delegates are selected who, at the upcoming national congresses of the parties, will support one or another candidate for the presidency in the elections scheduled for November 3 in the United States.
Earlier it was reported that Trump called his rival in the upcoming Bloomberg elections short.